Castle Sardonis is surrounded by enemies on all sides and dangerously short of supplies. When a needed shipment goes missing the party finds themselves on the high seas beset by pirates and seeking the Goddess of the Sea. New loot, new levels, and new mysteries to unravel as more is learned about the world.

Immediately following the story from Dungeon Crawl the focus remains with the same group and focused on their struggles within the Crucible Shard. Bonds of friendship continue to grow but they each find themselves pushed in new ways by this world.

My Opinion: 193 pages, $3.99, available on Kindle Unlimited

A bit overpriced at over 2 cents a page. That’s normally double the price I look for but it’s also on Kindle Unlimited.

I want to first mention that there are a lot of sex jokes in this novel. Quite a few more than I remember the first book having. For some people that’s a major turn off, for others it’s a plus. Just letting you know up front.

The story takes the three main characters onto the high seas to fight pirates, gain resources for the kingdom they won, and kill a water goddess.

Unfortunately, only a few of those things happen. I’ll admit that I’m slightly biased against pirate stories. It’s not that I think they’re bad, I just don’t find them that interesting. In the great debate of Ninjas versus Pirates, I’m firmly team ninja.

There’s a lot of sea battles and pirate recruiting. However, I found myself at the 90% mark of the story and realized that the main characters hadn’t really done anything. They’d recruited some pirates, fought some battles, lost most of them or just broken even. Yet, most of the story advancement happens because of newly introduced characters and not the three VR players.

While I liked the expansion of the game mechanics, the story felt a little unfocused. The first book in the series was a lot tighter. It focused on three VR players and their dungeon crawl. Simple. It just appealed to me more than this one. If you like pirates and naval battles, or if you just have Kindle Unlimited, then you might like the story more than me. I give it a 5 out of 10.